Sarah Zama Authorhttps://sarahzama.theoldshelter.com
Dieselpunk Author and 1920s EnthusiastSat, 08 Dec 2018 15:09:00 +0000en-GBhourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=5.0.1SINEAD – Michael and Mehttps://sarahzama.theoldshelter.com/sinead-michael-and-me/
Tue, 12 Sep 2017 11:21:06 +0000http://sarahzama.theoldshelter.com/?p=506When I first met Michael, he helped me out. I had been falsely accused of theft and I’d been forced to take refuge in the stockroom of the hostel I’d been working for. A mob was after me, people I knew, who believed the accusation. It was horrible. I knew they would breech into the stockroom sooner or later and they were not going to be kind on me. He and his brother, Blood, entered the stockroom from a window and helped me escape. Just like that. For no good reason other than I needed help.

But then, when I came to know Michael better, I learned that isn’t all that unusual. He always makes a show not to care, not to get into other people’s business, but if he comes across someone who needs help and he can do something about it, he will. Sometimes in spite of himself. I just think it’s stronger than him, you know? That’s one of the reasons why I love him. I know his true heart, I’ve seen it.

I like being with him. I feel safe and protected. Sometimes we laugh and have a great fun. Sometimes he’s pensive and silent, so serious, and I know he ponders about us. I know he thinks about his wife and the family he lost. He seldom speaks about it, but I know. Even if his wife and daughters died many years ago, they’re still in his heart, and I could be jealous, but I’m not. He’s that kind of man. Once he gives you his loyalty, he will never take it back.

I know he loves me the same way I love him. He understands me. I just hope one day he will trust me enough to give his loyalty to me.

He’s that kind of man. Once he gives you his loyalty, he will never take it back #historicalfictionClick To Tweet

]]>SINEAD – I’m a midwife and a bonecasterhttps://sarahzama.theoldshelter.com/sinead-im-a-midwife-and-a-bonecaster/
Tue, 05 Sep 2017 11:12:43 +0000http://sarahzama.theoldshelter.com/?p=502I’m Sinéad O’Flanagan, I’m twenty-four and I’m a midwife. I came here to Chicago last year. It was Wednesday 15th July 1925. I will never forget that day, because as I enter the States, I could have as well been slapped onto the moon. Nothing here looks, smells or feels as it did in the village where I was born in the Shannon Valley… and that was even fine with me, at the beginning.

When I left Ireland, I left nothing behind. I’m the last of my family, a family of midwives and healers. I was reared by my Granny to be a midwife, knowing herbs and their powers. Knowing the bodies and minds of people, especially mothers. Knowing how to look beyond the flimsy veil of this world. But when Granny died, the world topple upside down for me. I was still very young and people didn’t trust me. Granny had been respected and sought after for her wisdom. She was an elder, she had been a mother herself. I was young and unripe, what did I have to offer to anyone?

As time passed, I came to believe the same, that I had nothing to offer. I begun to think that place, which had been Granny’s and my family’s place for centuries, maybe wasn’t supposed to be mine. So when I had the possibility to leave, I did. When I came to Chicago, everything was new and different, but I thought maybe it should be this way. Maybe my path was to build a new life in a New World.

I will never forget the day I entered the States. I might as well been slapped on the face of the Moon #histficClick To Tweet

Life is so strange, you know? It has the weirdest way to guide you.

When I started working here, helping people in my own Irish community, I met a woman, an old woman. A midwife herself. An Irish woman, she said she was, though she was born right here in Chicago. But she was so much like Granny and like her, she could look though me. She saw right away I wasn’t walking the path meant for me, a path she herself knew so well.

She gave me this coin. She asked a promise of me and she knew exactly what she was doing. She was a healer, after all.

GIVE IN TO THE FEELING

Chicago 1924

When Susie dances with Blood in Simon’s speakeasy, she discovers there’s a new world beyond the things she owns and the things she’s allowed to do. Blood values her thoughts, her feelings and offers his respect for her as a person.So different from the luxury Simon has offered her. The exciting club nights and the new freedom of dressing and doing as she pleases.

But Susie’s still Simon’s woman, and he won’t allow her to forget it.

Soon, Susie there might be more than two men fighting over her. As Blood and Simon confront each other, Susie sees the spirit world filter into her world and crack the reality she knows. And when she looks through the shards of the illusion she’s been living, Susie realises making a choice between the two will be more difficult than she has ever imagined.

BUY IT!

The book is not currently on Amazon but is available for Kindle via Smashwords

The blog tour is over, but it was a great ride and I think it offers many intersting articles. So, if you curious about the Roaring Twenties, the flapper movement, jazz, dances, dieselpunk and generally fantasy, click on the banner below.

I’m Sinéad O’Flanagan, I’m twenty-four and I’m a midwife. I came here to Chicago last year. It was Wednesday 15th July 1925. I will never forget that day, because as I enter the States, I could have as well been slapped onto the moon. Nothing here looks, smells or feels as it did in the village where I was born in the Shannon Valley… and that was even fine with me, at the beginning.

When I left Ireland, I left nothing behind. I’m the last of my family, a family of midwives and healers. I was reared by my Granny to be a midwife, knowing herbs and their powers. Knowing the bodies and minds of people, especially mothers. Knowing how to look beyond the flimsy veil of this world. But when Granny died, the world topple upside down for me. I was still very young and people didn’t trust me. Granny had been respected and sought after for her wisdom. She was an elder, she had been a mother herself. I was young and unripe, what did I have to offer to anyone?

As time passed, I came to believe the same, that I had nothing to offer. I begun to think that place, which had been Granny’s and my family’s place for centuries, maybe wasn’t supposed to be mine. So when I had the possibility to leave, I did. When I came to Chicago, everything was new and different, but I thought maybe it should be this way. Maybe my path was to build a new life in a New World.

Life is so strange, you know? It has the weirdest way to guide you.

When I started working here, helping people in my own Irish community, I met a woman, an old woman. A midwife herself. An Irish woman, she said she was, though she was born right here in Chicago. But she was so much like Granny and like her, she could look though me. She saw right away I wasn’t walking the path meant for me, a path she herself knew so well.

She gave me this coin. She asked a promise of me and she knew exactly what she was doing. She was a healer, after all.

Interview with Sinéad O’Flanagan

Hi Sinéad! Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

Sinéad is a young woman in her mid-twenties and as she enters the room and sits down for the interview, it’s apparent she’s quite ill at ease about it.

“I don’t see why people would want to know about me,” she says with a shy smile. “I’m a regular woman.”

She sits with her back straight, clutching her purse with both hands in her lap.

“Do you like my purse?” she asks. “It’s a gift from a very good friend. She stitched it herself. Gifts are precious. They give you strength.”

She wears a very simple dress, tide with a sash at her hips. It’s a creamy colour that matches her cloche, which covers her hair almost completely, though rebel auburn curls escape and brush her cheeks.

Her face is all cover up with freckles, which she tried very hard to cover with make up, but still show through it. Her chestnut eyes are clear and large.

Please tell us about your family.

“I was born in a very little village in the Shannon Valley in Ireland. A very far away place, I now think, but…” Her voice trails away, but then she smiles. “It was home. It is home.

I never knew my father. Granny never told me about it. It feels as if my family was always a mostly female family. My mum dies of pneumonia when I was three and Granny raised me. She was a midwife, like most of my female ancestors. Like myself. She knew about herbs, and she knew about the soul and the spirit of people.”

She pauses only a moment, pensively. “I’m trying to follow in her footsteps as well I can. Granny taught me to speak by telling me the names of the different herbs and their properties. I learn to walk in the wood, where I help Granny gathering those herbs. When I was old enough – that means around ten – she started bringing me with her when she went to deliver babies.”

I have heard that your Granny was a wise woman.

“She was, even in the sense you mean.” She fidgets absentmindedly with her purse. “But my people understood it in a different way. Granny was a wise woman because she knew things only few people knows. People trusted her.” She wavered and bit at her lower lip. “Even dead people trusted her and sometimes they would come to talk to her.

Do they come to talk to you too?

“No. I can’t talk to ghosts.” Her fingers are still nervos over her purse. “Bones talk to me.”

If you prefers to call them that. They’re bones. They’re like spirits. If you ask them questions, they’ll answer. And they will always say the truth.

You look a bit uncomfortable talking about it.

Many people don’t like me talking about it. They think I’m talking about witchcraft, which is ridiculous. This is the world around us, it isn’t something dark or devious. But still, especially in the big cities, especially modern youths don’t like to talk about it and I know I’ll get into trouble if I do.

When I left my village and I went to Galway, and especially when I came to Chicago, I thought maybe life was showing me a new way. Maybe I was supposed to leave the past behind and embrace a new life. I tried to do it, I really did. But I discovered all the meanings were in my past and in the knowledge my ancestors handed down to me. My knowledge. My bones. That’s who I am. I can’t just shed it. And I don’t want to.”

We’ll go on to something more easy. Your favorites. Tell us your favorite and why:

Word-Heart. Heart is the most important part of any being. It’s where all the knowledge is kept and where all the emotions reside. The way your knowledge and your emotions mix… that’s you. That’s the person you are.

Color-Can I choose two? Green and grey. That’s my home. That’s Ireland. When it rains – and you’d be surprise how often it does,” she laughs, “the grass turns a brilliant emerald green, but the sky remains overcast and grey – though of a luminous grey. The two colours seem to complement each other and make each other more brilliant by contrast. It happens so often in Ireland.

Food-Ginger cookies. Granny baked the best in the world.

Drink-I don’t drink often, but when I go out with friends, I usually get a cocktail or two. My favourite is the Rob Roy.

Subject in school-Granny was my school. She taught me everything I know. Herbs properties, the needs of a woman’s body. The emotions and fears of a mother before and after she delivers. Midwives must know the minds of mothers as well as their body, if they want to be of help.

Then, when I came to Chicago, I met a woman, Kathlyn, a midwife like myself. Her mother came from Ireland too. Kathlyn taught me to read and count. She also reminded me I should believe in myself, in my knowledge and my skills.

How did your last relationship end?

She stands still for a long moment, her face expressionless.

“I’m not sure there was any kind of emotional relationship with Cathal. I thought there was, but… you know, when Granny died, the world toppled upside down for me. People trusted Granny, but not me. I did my mistake, I won’t deny it, but I felt so lost and alone… and that was enough for them to think I was not a good midwife. I could not replace my Granny. It was hard. Hard and lonely and Cathal’s company felt good… and long as it lasted. Then he too merged into the flow of people who didn’t think enough of me.

Tell us your thoughts on love. Marriage? Kids?

“Love is such a precious, rare thing. We should be careful when giving it and when accepting it.”

She smiles. “But sometime you do find it.” She blushes so hard her freckles disappear under the make up. She lowers her gaze, still smiling. “I met this man, Michael. He’s a good man and he accepts me for who I am. He understands me. I don’t know whether we’ll ever marry, but I hope we’re spend the rest of our life together.”

——————————————————————

This is an interview with one of my main characters from Ghostly Smell Around. It originally appeared in the Saturday Morning Character on Lyssa Layne’s blog, but I was given permission to repost it here.

Ghostly Smell Around

Just for the fun of it cover

Chicago, 1926

When Michael sees his brother Blood sprint away through the streets of the Black Belt, he doesn’t question. He just follows him.
The two brothers find Sinéad cornered in a stockroom by an angry mob and help her escape.

One week later, they find her again on a night out at a black-and-tan speakeasy. Sinéad trusts Michael enough to show him something that has been frightening her: a one-hundred-year old coin a friend entrusted to her. Michael and Blood’s reaction to it tells her they also feel the presence: the soul of an Indian woman is trapped in the coin and seeking revenge, and Sinéad knows she has to find a way to sooth that soul, or someone will die. If this means digging her past and her bones up, then she’ll have to cope with it.

Michael is willing to help Sinéad handle the coin and the ghost, as Blood realises the ghost is connected to the speakeasy. The person in danger might be someone on the staff. In order to help Sinéad, Michael must face and embrace memories he’s been trying hard to forget: the rez, the loss, the wars, the dead.

Ghost Trilogy

I’ve never meant to write Ghost Trilogy.
When I started toying around with this project, it was merely meant to be a short story. I wanted to write a story set in a speakeasy (I’ve always liked old black and white movies and all that setting) with supernatural elements. I toyed around with a few ideas for a few weeks, having in mind a main character with supernatural characteristics. Nothing seemed to work.
Then one day, I don’t even know how it happened, I discovered this character had a brother.
It just clicked. All elements went into place and I started creating more and more threads, until eventually I understood that was not a short story anymore, but probably a whole set of short stories.

As it often happens, I just toyed with the story in my head for a long time. In the end I decided I had to write these characters down and see whether they worked on the page as well as they worked in my head. That’s always an awkward moment, you know, when the characters take life on the story.
I was learning a lot of things about the period and the place, so that was a bit scary too, but I thought, just try write them, and see.
I decided to go easy, to write how my two main characters met one of the major supporting female characters in my project as I saw it at the time. It turned out to be very easy. I fell in love with these characters right away, worst than I was when I just thought about them. I just loved writing them.
This was a short story. Honestly, I thought about Give In to the Feeling more as a characters’ study then a true story – although it was received quite nicely on the workshop.
Next I thought, fine, I tested the characters, let’s test the setting.

I wanted a story happening in the speakeasy I thought about from the beginning. So I thought I could write about how my main characters ended up in there. Because I was thinking about turning the main project into a series of short stories, I thought I could test that too.
So this was the idea: write a trilogy of short stories set in my speakeasy. And what better chance to do that if not during NaNoWriMo? I thought I’d write a detailed synopsis of each story and then started writing the actual story so to reach the 50k words of the challenge.

It didn’t exactly happen that way.

I realised something wasn’t going the way I planned it when the first synopsis ended up at 22k words. The second synopsis went along as a synopsis for another 15k words, then I switched to first draft mode. Ended up at 45k words. The third novel was written as a first draft right away, which ended up at 150k words. Four months after NaNoWriMo I had the skeleton of my entire story written down and it had just exploded in my hands.

Ghost Trilogy didn’t want to be a test. It wanted to be a trilogy of novels.

She closed the door behind her and walked in, her steps silent on the polar bear hide spread on the floor. She took her wrap off and let it fall on the puff armchair standing with its twin and a crystal coffee table in the corner with the bookcase. When her white cloche fell over it, the creamy fox fur of the wrap ruffled slightly. She headed to the bar taking from her tiny handbag an object wrapped in thin, almost transparent paper.

The winter day outside was gorgeous, if frosty. The clean, candid light reflected off the snow and filtered through the two wide windows which she had veiled with light curtains as pure as a bride’s veil. Her boudoir was the brightest room in the house, that’s why she chose it.

In front of the bar, she looked into the mirror.

It was a large, oval mirror she had acquired a long time ago, many years before she married. It came from the old continent and although antiquarians had assured her the complicatedly carved frame was at least two hundred years old, she knew the mirror itself was far older.

She looked at her reflection in the depth of the mirror, the glass darkened by age. Her ruby mouth stood out on her powdered face like ripe cherries on the finest linen and only her black eyes, further darkened by smoky makeup, were more outstanding. Her perfect bob was wavy and black, though on closer inspection she noticed a lock of white on her temple. Her mouth curved in an annoyed pout, before she waved the matter away.

She placed the little parcel on the bar bench and unwrapped it, the thin paper whispering in the bright silence of the boudoir. Inside, was a comb made of bone.

Her red mouth formed a light smile. Her husband’s daughter would soon be a woman. In fact, her birthday was just days away. She was satisfied she had found the right gift just in time.

Admiring the comb and its exquisitely exotic design, she reached for two of the crystal chalices and placed them beside the comb. Then she poured a ruby wine from a heavily carved crystal decanter. The wine had cost her a fortune. This wasn’t the bootleg stuff so easily found in the city speakeasies, this was the real thing and only came from across the border. But she didn’t mind to pay.

Two crystal vases stood on each side of the mirror, one containing white pearls, the other black ones. She took one white pearl and put it in one of the chalices. She took a black pearl and put it in the other.

The wine with the white pearl bubbled for a moment, then settled. But the wine with the black pearl started to smolder, thin wisps of dark smoke drifting up. Gently, she blew the aromatic smoke toward the mirror. It brushed against it, slithered on in, then entered it. The face of the mirror darkened further, drifts of smoke swirled in it and, among them, two dim lights appeared. Two eyes, opening on the darkness.

She smiled, then motioned her hands in a dance that mimicked the swirls of the smoke, which sipped back out of the mirror and coiled around her wrists. She dipped a finger gently in the wine with the black pearl, feeling the prickling of the liquid, then let a few drops fall over the comb.

The two drops stood on the ivory surface like pearls of blood, then sizzled, released a burgundy smoke that drifted up, thick like ribbons, pearly in the bright boudoir — then dissolved.

Good.

She took up the other chalice and sipped at the wine. It only slightly tasted of the horrible taste of the white pearl. It had taken her many years to find the right quality of wine but it was worth it, she though as she saw a wrinkle at the corner of her eye disappear and the white lock on her temple turning dark.

Swirling the wine, she looked at the unreadable eyes in the mirror. “Then you’ll tell me, won’t you?” Her mouth curved in a sweet smile. “Who’s the fairest of them all.”

Her stepdaughter's birthday is close and she has just found the perfect gift #shortstoryClick To Tweet

There are always voices calling and I’ll always listen

The world is changing so fast it is unsettling.

This city of Chicago is the most puzzling place I’ve ever visited. Full of people. Full of noise. It’s hard to listen with all this noise around us. But there are voices calling. There are always voices calling. And I’ll always listen.

Cansasa also called, long ago, when we first met. He was the one who gave me my name by calling to me. Wewacipi.
It was a crumbling world of wars, and deceit, and lies that we were living in. Tribes were disbanded and destroyed, we were all supposed to take up a new way of living, no matter how senseless it looked to us, no matter how wounded we still were from all the loss. So many had lost so much.

Voices are calling. There are always voices calling. And I’ll always listen #paranormalClick To Tweet

Cansasa was a man left with nothing, he sure thought so. I knew better. I knew he still remembered and he still cared, deep inside. There’s a place, deep inside us, where nothing is ever lost. Where no matter what people see, what we ourselves think, our true self always lives. Sometimes we forget to look. Sometimes, we’re afraid of looking.
Cansasa taught me that.

But I couldn’t tell him back then. I knew he wouldn’t listen. So I had to show him.
I knew he hated the reservation. Like his chief, he never accepted to surrender to it. But I knew that was the place he needed to be. He gave in, in the end. He gave in because he trusted me.

He hated every moment. Hated seeing his cousins, his relatives, his elders, his tribesmen suffering and fading. He felt powerless – and he was, because he refused to delve into that deepest part of him where his strength lay, because that’s where his most painful memories also lived.
I was powerless too. I wasn’t able to make him see. When he decided to leave, I wasn’t happy about his decision, but I went with him. Of course I did. We’re brothers. I won’t leave him to tread this path alone.
One day he will see. He will look further and he will see. I’ll be there when that happens.

But now, we’re here in Chicago and other voices call. Other people who feel trapped and need to look just a little bit further.
I’ll listen to them. I will always listen.

Who’s modelling as Blood

Michael Jackson

Michael Joseph Jackson was born in Gary, Indiana on August 29, 1958, and entertained audiences nearly his entire life. His parents prodded their growing family’s musical interests at home. By the early 1960s, the older boys Jackie, Tito and Jermaine had begun performing around the city; by 1964, Michael and Marlon had joined in. A musical prodigy, Michael’s singing and dancing talents were amazingly mature, and he soon became the dominant voice and focus of the Jackson 5. As a product of the 1970s, the boys emerged as one of the most accomplished black pop / soul vocal groups in music history, successfully evolving from a group like The Temptations to a disco phenomenon.

Solo success for Michael was inevitable, and by the 1980s, he had become infinitely more popular than his brotherly group. Record sales consistently orbited, culminating in the biggest-selling album of all time, “Thriller” in 1982. A TV natural, he ventured rather uneasily into films, such as playing the Scarecrow in I’m magic (1978), but had much better luck with elaborate music videos.

I should have known better than to think my will alone would shape my life

I’ve always known why I was born and as a young man I willingly chose to follow that path. The path every man should tread, that of defending our people, with our hands and our wit and to protect our land with weapons in hands if need be… though I should have known better than to think my will alone would shaped my life.
We were invincible (aren’t all young men?) but it wasn’t enough. I was at the right place at the right time. It was a victory, but it wasn’t enough. I lost one of my brothers, that day. Then I lost my family, my wife and my daughters. And then my tribesmen and my leader. And then our land was taken from us piece by piece, no matter how fierce we fought, with weapons and wit and mere will-power.
Nothing was enough.
During one of those fights I was severely wounded and that’s when it happened to me the first time. I had seen across the veil before, in dreams and during ceremonies, but when I woke from my wounds, I could see though it even when awake. The grandpa who healed me was the first to realize it. He was the one who gave me my new name, Cansasa. I asked him why that name? He told me one day I would know.

That’s when I met Wewacipi. We were both so lost in a world so different from the one we knew it wasn’t surprising we came together. He always says I saved him, though quite frankly, I think it was the other way around. He was the steady point in a shifting world. My brother.
I trust no one the way I trust him, that’s why I let him convince me to go to the reservation. I hated going. It wasn’t home. But Wewacipi was right. They were my people.

I should have known better than to think my will alone would shape my life #histficClick To Tweet

I wish I could erase those years from my mind and my heart. Claw those memories off of me and just bury them where I will never find them again. The Pine Ridge reservation is a prison with invisible walls on a land inside a line written on a piece of paper, a place they call South Dakota. It means nothing to me. My people lived at the foot of the Black Hills, where I was born. Pine Ridge never meant anything to me. But Wewacipi convinced me to go.

Had I been stronger, I may have made a difference. I should have known I wasn’t. I watched my people, cousins, elders, women fall to deprivation and illness, and anything I did was meaningless and weak. I was useless.

Indians don’t leave the reservation these days. We know there’s nothing for us outside. But there was nothing for me inside either. I just knew. I needed to… go.
Wewacipi wasn’t happy with my decision, but he went with me nonetheless. We walked roads increasingly busy with traffic and came to this city, Chicago, where there’s no remembrance of what the land used to be. No connection. Though sometimes the veil still become clear enough to see on the other side.

In this world that makes no sense to me, perhaps it’s beyond the veil where all meaning lies.

Who’s modelling as Michael

Rick Mora

Rick was born in a field of corn called Los Angeles but raised on a 100 acre farm with no electricity and a wood burning stove in Crescent City, California. He returned to the city at age 7. He obtained a Bachelors

Degree from California State University, Northridge in communication. Acting and Modeling soon followed when he was discovered by legendary Male Super Model agent Omar Alberto. Mora then successfully shot with great photographers like Carlos Reynosa, Cliff Watts, and Matthew Rolston which allowed him to enter the American & European commercial & modeling market.

In addition to acting, Rick is an artist involved in the business of photography with over 9 commissioned pieces. He specializes in Landscapes but also shoots head shots, modeling portfolio, children and weddings. He photographs feature film as well as many high profile events.

The dreams fueled my desires and I follow them willingly

The world is changing so fast it is unsettling.

I remember plains of grass extending to the horizon. The sound of the wind swishing among the long green blades. An untamed river. Birds flying in the sky. Where has this maze of concrete come from. And when?
But no, what I remember is a city of wooden houses and people jamming everywhere. Shouts and calls and laughter and cry. Beijing, where I was born, on the other side of the world.

It is hard to remember, sometimes. I can hardly say what part of me is remembering. San Francisco? It’s a haze on the back of my mind, some sort of ‘before’, though I’m not sure before what.
I hated it there. I hated San Francisco the moment I walked out the ship. I was examined, asked questions I couldn’t possibly understand. And then thrown in a part of the city that was like China slapped on the face of San Francisco. Why had I crossed the ocean if then I found myself in China, only without being in China? To be expected to act like a Chinese, only when I wasn’t expect to act like an American – which I’ll never be?
It was just crazy. I was going to let that behind. Soon. As soon as possible. And to do that, I needed money.

I met this men in San Francisco Chinatown, a fellow Chinese from Beijing. A lot older than me. He had started an import/export firm, bringing stuff from home to this new land. He mostly worked for Chinatown, but some of the things he brought in were sold, at fabulous price, to Americans. He made money so easily it was shocking. And worth learning.
I’m a fast learner, you know? He liked that. In a very short time, I became his assistant, then his associate. I learned English fast and good. I learned to deal with Americans a lot better than he ever did. I was learning, and I could see the day I’d leave San Francisco getting nearer and nearer.

Then my associate decided he had gained enough and wanted a family. There were crowds of Chinese in Chinatown, but very few of them where women. So he did what most of us did: bought a wife from home. I thought that was a sensible way to go. I had many women, I mean non-Chinese women. Usually for just few days. But when I set up a house, of course I wanted a Chinese woman. He took contact with home, asked for a woman suitable for marriage. Asked after her looks and personality, and when he was satisfied, he asked for her to be sent over.
Two weeks after this he caught a flu and died.

And the new wife… can’t say it bothered me to have her come here without reason, but it was an annoyance. What would I do with this woman? I didn’t need a wife yet.
But when I saw her…
She was beautiful. Not short, with a stately countenance. Fair skin, sparkling dark eyes, with a lot of life in her. And lost. So lost. I thought I could help her find a way into my life and my bed. She never complained about that.
It was perfect. I had a woman and I had money enough to leave San Francisco with her.

I don’t know how I learned about the speakeasy in Chicago. Another businessman, most likely. I didn’t know where Chicago was even when he told me it was in Illinois. It was fine. I didn’t care where it was, as long as it was far away from San Francisco. And I was happy when I learned there were so few Chinese in Chicago that I was unlikely to ever stumble into.
I bought the place straightaway.

But I remember the dreams. They inspired me. I followed them willingly #paranormalClick To Tweet

I remember this quite clearly. Early times in Chicago – I don’t remember just as clearly. But I remember the dreams. Strange dreams that would visit me every night. I can’t say I know what they were about, but they were inspiring. The feeling is still with me. They inspired me what to do, what I wanted to achieve and how to achieve it. They gave me purpose, and I gave myself to them. I followed their inspiration willingly. When I lay beside Su Xie in our bed, I always hoped dreams would visit me.
That’s all I remember.
But no, no, I also remember what it was like before. The need to share. The loneliness of not sharing. It was like a drug. I felt incomplete without sharing. Sharing my desires, sharing my aspirations. Sharing my knowledge. It had been normal, before. Before… I don’t know when that before is.
And I don’t know… What would I share? I knew that sharing would allow me to gain, gain what I deserved. But the desire will burn. It will burn everything and it will need to be fed. That’s why I never stopped Su Xie from pursuing her desires. I wanted her to stay genuine, and strong. I wanted her to be happy and satisfied because that would feed her loyalty to me. That would keep her near.

And now I need her more than ever.

Who’s modelling as Simon

Chen Kun

Kun Chen was born on February 4, 1976 in Chongqing, Sichuan, China.

He gained a following after appearing in one of his earliest films titled Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. He rose to new heights when he played Chen Qiushui in The Knot.

Hundred Flowers Award winner for his performance in the film Painted Skin as Wang Sheng and Golden Horse nominee for A West Lake Moment. He is also notable on television for his performance in Love in Shanghai.